i know nothing about wired routers

somone help ! i am a blank sheet of paper . i want to set up a 2 desktop pc's router they don't need to be networked really....but i am interested in the protection a router provides with its firewall..i gather most routers afford its users this protection?...what do i need besides the router..any special adaptors? ..and how do i set the router for the smallest possible loss of download speeds?..what routers do you guys own/recomend i'd like to get my exspenses around 100...thank you in advance for any help

 

Well, for home type routers, I like the Linksys WRT54GL V1.1 It also has wirless G if you ever upgrade to wireless you will have it. You can get them for around $60. You will need a couple of Cat5 straight cables to go from the router to each PC (the router above has 4 ports, so you could hook up 4 computers.

The wireless part can easily be disabled for security if you don't need it.

Questions for you: What is your internet source? Cable, DSL? I am assuming you want a 2 computer network where each computer can access the interweb and can also trasfer files between the 2 computers. What operating systems are you using?

 

For the most part you will connect each pc to the router ports on back. Depending on your type of modem it will need it to be bridged so it creates a tunnel thru the modem. Some modems are actually already a router depending on what kind you have. If it's a router it will have extra ethernet ports on back. If not, after it is bridged you will put your internet connection type in the router (i.e. dhcp, ppp, dialup etc) and of course hook both pc's to available ethernet ports on router .After its all connected via ethernet cables you should have available internet to both pc's. The router will control the signal to both pc's.

 

xp sp 2 and vista sp1 ...i'm no really interested in networking the two although sharing the printer would be nice...the connection is cable...i really shouldn't have left that out...does the Linksys WRT54GL have any firewall protection? that seems cheap even for a cheap router...how is your download speeds?

 

Two options
without a network
http://www.ehow.com/how_2317405_share-printer-without-network.html

and with a network
http://www.ehow.com/how_4470843_share-printer-network.html

 

another dumb question...what is a switch...which seems.. "to somone that doesn't knolw anything about networking or routers" that they are the same thing...one newegg reviewer says he hooks it up to his router? but why ..for what additional benfits?

 

The router will control the ip traffic between computer plus has the advantages of firewall (depending on the brand/type of modem, there are several diff kinds), you can encrypt a wireless connection, ETC. The main thing is it controls the traffic without collision. A switch/hub will allow more than one pc to be added to a existing network yet the router serves that purpose too. A network can be as tiny as only 2 pc's. Hope this helps to understand. In wikipedia i bet there is a more precise explanation.

 

The benefit of connecting a switch to a cable/DSL router (which is partly a switch itself) is you can add additional wired ports to the router just by hooking it to one of the router's wired ports. I don't know if they still sell it, but Linksys used to offer a 1-port router, and you could just hook whatever size switch you wanted to it to create a router with as many ports as the switch.

 

Most home routers are a router and switch combination. I like the WRT54GL because with a little time and research (bout 15 mins) you can flash it to the Tomato firmware. This will let you do as little or as much configuring of the router as you want.

A link: http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato

 

Router=multiple connections simple math